For example, six choral and instrumental works were written at about the same time in
1850 for the Weimar festival celebrating the Goethe Centennial. In one week of May
1851 he finished both a new polonaise for piano and the “Wanderer” Fantasy
transcription; moreover the seventh and eighth pieces from Harmonies poétiques were
nearly complete. He wrote to Wittgenstein [Carolyne] that he would have been more
productive, but appearances at court, concert rehearsals, and a “downpour of
correspondence” had required his attention.
After new works appeared, Liszt normally dispersed them to friends in parcels containing
anywhere from four to a dozen or more recent publications. The Sonata was therefore
not conceived in isolation, outside of the complex of works surrounding it. The original
draft must have been written while other projects were momentarily set aside. Nor did he
send the published Sonata to his colleagues without including samples of other newly-
printed pieces.’ Source: Winklhofer
Liszt wrote his Sonata during late 1852 and early 1853 in his private studio at the
Altenburg, Weimar. His room was at the back of the main building in a lower wing and
an outside view of it may be seen in the drawing of the Altenburg in Mason’s memoirs.
‘Composers are normally very protective of the actual act of composition, wishing it to
be unheard and unobserved. But with Liszt, as far as Karolina [Carolyne von Sayn-
Wittgenstein] was concerned, this was not so, for she had a desk in the room where he
normally worked, and it was common for her to slip in and write unobtrusively while he
composed at the piano. If the present hypothesis [as to encryption of the names of Franz
and Carolyne within the notes of the main themes in the Sonata] is on the mark, we may
reasonably speculate that Karolina would have been present during times when her
partner was at work on this Sonata. Rarely, if ever, can a composer have conceived with
his inspiration so close and visible, just across the room – nor can a dedicatee have
overheard the working process whereby the celebration of her relationship with that
composer came into being.’ Source: David Brown ‘Deciphering Liszt: The B Minor
Sonata Revisited.
Franz Liszt’s life spanned most of the nineteenth century, the ‘romantic period’ in
musical history, most of it before sound recording. He lived for nine years after Edison’s
invention but, although rumours abound, no cylinder of Liszt’s playing has ever come to
light. It seems he was never approached by Edison’s European emissaries, although
Brahms, Anton Rubinstein and Tchaikovsky were.
Reproducing pianos
A number of Liszt’s disciples (not his pupils who are discussed elsewhere), all celebrated
piano virtuosos in their own right, made recordings of piano works by Liszt. Recording
mediums (apart from wax cylinders) consisted of reproducing piano rolls on the one hand
and of discs (acoustic discs and, later, electrically recorded discs) on the other. Discs
developed from 78s into LPs and CDs, but rolls and the reproducing pianos on which